For many weeks after Jimmy’s return from this trip he found life tame and colorless, although he was busy enough. There were flying assignments aplenty; but Jimmy found them very ordinary experiences. The day had long since passed when Jimmy could get a thrill merely by making a flight in the air. And that was about all his assignments now amounted to. One of the first of these flying assignments was a commission to hunt for a lost yacht. A small pleasure craft had disappeared somewhere along the Atlantic coast between New York and Boston. It was not known whether the craft was floating helplessly on the sea, or whether it had put in at some isolated harbor, or whether it might have gone down, with all on board. The owner was a man of importance. With a small group of friends he had ventured out on the ocean, and the party had utterly vanished. Great anxiety was felt for their safety, and because of the social and business prominence of the missing man, the newspapers joined in the hunt. Jimmy had little expectation of finding the lost yacht. The story promised to be an easy one to cover. Jimmy would fly until he found the boat or failed to find it. In the one case there would be nothing to write, or next to nothing, whereas in the other there would be little to do, probably, except drop a note to the boat, promising aid, then fly back to land and send out a relief ship, and finally to write a story to the effect that the missing boat had been found. Jimmy secured permission to take Johnnie with him on this trip. Or, to be more exact, the city editor assigned Johnnie the job of flying with Jimmy. And that was about all the assignment amounted to. They flew for hours, and covered a tremendous stretch of shore-line and coastal waters, but discovered no trace of the missing ship. They got back to the hangar cold, hungry, and stiff, and Jimmy at least was thoroughly disgusted. To Johnnie the trip was thrilling enough. Soon afterward Jimmy made a flight that was far more interesting. The managing editor telephoned him to get ready to fly to Auburn, New York, where rioting had broken out in the state prison. Handley was sent along to write a story, for this was a two-man job. The flight up state was ordinary enough, but the riot within the prison walls was far different. Buildings were afire, prisoners were armed, guards were located in strategic positions, and a real battle was in progress within the walls, while outside were ranged troops and policemen, hastily collected and thrown about the institution to prevent a general escape of prisoners.